by John O'Hara
“Was I?”
“I’ll say.”
“I just discovered something, or almost did. Wondering whether anyone was happily married. I wondered if I was, and then I wondered if I wasn’t. God, I’m in a worse spot than anyone. I don’t even know if I’m unhappily married. I don’t know anything about myself. I must be happy, because whenever I’ve looked back and remembered times when I was happy, I always find that I didn’t know I was happy when I was. Well, if I’m happy now it’s because of you. Let me rave. I’m thinking out loud.”
“A little too loud for the taxi driver, or else maybe not loud enough.”
“Well, that’s all he’s going to hear. This is the end of the line.”
This time they were not greeted by the voluble bartender, but by a tall sad man who looked as though he ought to be a Texas Ranger. They went to the small room off the bar where there were booths, and when the bartender brought their drinks Liggett began: “I didn’t feel like talking about this in the taxi. Now I have to talk and get it over with. Gloria, did you take a fur coat out of my apartment Sunday?”
Silence.
“Did you? Are you not answering because you’re angry, or what?”
“What do you think?”
“I’m asking you.”
“Yes, I took it.”
“Well, will you give it back? It’s my wife’s coat, and I’ve had a hard time keeping her from telling the police.”
“Why don’t you let her tell the police?”
“Do you really want the coat that much?”
“I could have it, couldn’t I?”
“Yes. You could, but not very easily. Uh, naturally it would break up my home. The first thing the detectives would do would be to question the employees of the apartment house, and the elevator operator would remember your leaving with the coat on Sunday. Then they’d tell my wife there was a girl in the apartment Saturday night, and while my wife might possibly forgive my being unfaithful, for the sake of the children, I don’t think she’d forgive my bringing anyone into her home. It’s her home, you know, even more than it is mine, or as much. Well, so that would break up the home, but that wouldn’t be all. When the police are notified in a thing like that they like to make an arrest, so they’d probably find out who you were.”
“From you?”
“No. Not from me. They could arrest me, I suppose, but I wouldn’t tell them who it was. But from—did you take a taxi? You must have. Well, they’d find out where you went, and so on. They have ways of finding out, without any help from me. So you wouldn’t have the coat long. And what if my wife told the insurance people? That would fix me in a business way. Not that there’s much left to be fixed, but at least I have a good job. Well, if my wife became vindictive and told the insurance people to, uh, proceed just as though I were a stranger, they would arrest me for compounding a felony or accessory before the fact or something like that, and the tabloids would get hold of it. No, you can’t win.”
“Crime does not pay, eh?”
“I don’t know whether it does or not, but I do know this, you won’t gain anything by keeping the coat.”
“Except the coat.”
“Not even the coat. They’ll take it away from you. Oh, come on, don’t be unreasonable. I’ll buy you a coat just like it.”
“It’s an expensive coat.”
“It’s insured for I think four thousand dollars. That’s quite an item for an insurance company to have to make good on. What are you doing, having fun?”
“A little. You have fun with me Saturday night. Big stuff, tearing my dress and all that old cave-man act.”
“I’m sorry about that. I’ve told you before I was sorry.”
“It didn’t sound very convincing before, but now that you’re in a jam—”
“Listen, God damn it—”
“Don’t swear at me. I’m going.”
“Oh, no, you’re not.”
“Oh, yes, I am, and don’t you try to stop me, if you know what’s good for you.”
“Listen, you little bitch, I’ll go to jail before I let you get away with this, and you will too. Sit down.” He reached for her hand, but she ran out to the barroom.
“Let me out of here,” she said to the bartender.
“Don’t open that door,” said Liggett.
“Out of the way, Mister,” said the bartender.
“What is it, Joe?” said a man at the bar, who Liggett saw was in uniform. The man turned, and it was a patrolman’s uniform. The cop put on his cap and came over.
“Don’t hurt him. Just let me out,” said Gloria.
“Is he molesting you, lady?” said the cop.
“I just want to get out,” said Gloria.
“Listen, officer—”
“Out of the way, wise guy,” said the cop, and in some manner which Liggett did not understand the cop put his hand inside Liggett’s coat and held him by the vest high up. He could not move. They let Gloria out and the cop still held Liggett.
“Wuddle we do with him, Joe?” said the cop. “You know him?”
“I never seen him before. Who are you, anyway?”
“I can identify myself.”
“Well, identify yourself,” said the cop.
“If you let me, I will,” said Liggett.
“Stand in back of him, Joe, just in case.”
“Oh, I won’t do anything.”
“Huh, you’re telling me. You picked the wrong spot to try anything, fellow, didn’t he, Joe?”
“Just leave him try something, he’ll find out.”
“I happen to be a very good friend of Pat Casey, if you’re interested,” said Liggett.
“A friend of Pat Casey’s,” said the cop. “He says he’s a friend of Pat Casey’s, Joe.”
“Wuddia know about that,” said Joe.
Whereupon the cop slapped Liggett back and forth on the face with the palm and the back of his hand. “A friend . . . of Pat . . . Casey. Don’t give me that, you son of a bitch. I don’t care if you’re a friend of the Pope of Rome, any . . . son . . . of a bitch . . . that tries to . . . skeer me . . . with who he knows. Now get outa here. Pat Casey!”
“Go on. Get out,” said Joe.
Liggett could hardly see. There were tears in his eyes from the cop’s slaps on his nose. “Like hell I will,” he said, ready to fight. The cop reached out and pushed him hard and quick, and he went down on his back. Joe, who had been standing in back of him, had knelt down back of his legs and all the cop had to do was push and down he went. He fell outside the speakeasy on the stair landing, and the two men began kicking him and kicked him until he crawled away and went down the stairs.
He had no hat, he could hardly see, his clothes were a mess of dirt and phlegmy spit that he had picked up on the floor, he was badly shaken by hitting his coccyx when the cop pushed him, his nose was bleeding, his body was full of sharp pains where they had kicked him.
To be deprived of the right to fight back when you have nothing left to lose is awful, and that made Liggett feel weak. They had beaten him in a few minutes worse than he ever had been beaten before, and he knew he could have gone on fighting now till they killed him, but they would not give him the chance, the bastards. Outside the world was disinterested or perhaps even friendly, but there was no fighting outside. It was inside, upstairs, where there was fighting, and he wanted to go back and fight those two; no rules, but kick and punch and swing and butt and bite. The only thing was, he was facing the street now, and it was too damn much trouble to turn around, and inside of him he knew he did not have the strength to climb the stairs. If he could be transported up the stairs and inside he could fight, but the stairs were too much. He heard the door upstairs being opened, then closing as his hat landed at his feet. He reached down painfully and picked it up and put it on his aching head, and
walked out to the street. He stumbled along into a taxi. The driver didn’t want him to get in, but was afraid to take a chance on crossing him. Then as the driver said: “Where to?” Gloria opened the door of the cab.
“It’s all right, I know him,” she said.
“Okay, Miss Wandrous,” said the driver.
“Out. Get out. Get outa my tax’ cab,” said Liggett.
“Go to 274 Horatio Street,” Gloria told the driver.
“Okay,” said the driver, and reached back to close the door, which had clicked only once.
Liggett got up and opened the door, mumbling: “I’m not going anywhere with you.” She tried to stop him but not very hard. It wasn’t much use trying and the streets were full of people, little people coming up from the fur center to pile into the southernmost entrance to the Times Square subway station. She saw Liggett get into another cab.
“Will I folly him?” said her driver.
“Yes, will you please?” she said.
Her taxi followed his to within a block of his home. She stopped and watched him get out, saw the doorman at his apartment pay the cab driver. “Go to the Horatio Street number,” she said.
Eddie did not answer his bell, though she rang for five minutes. She left a note for him and went home.
SIX
You could still read a newspaper in the street when Nancy and Paul Farley arrived at the Liggetts’. Nancy was wearing a printed chiffon frock, Farley was wearing a dinner jacket with shawl collar, a soft shirt, a cummerbund instead of a waistcoat, and pumps. The pumps were old and a little cracked, and in his hand he had a gray felt hat that certainly did not look new. Emily wondered where she had got the idea Farley would be dressed like something out of the theater programs. Where? From Weston, of course. Where, where was Weston? What had happened in Philadelphia?
“Good evening, Mrs. Farley, Mr. Farley. Let’s go in here, I think it’s cooler.”
“It is cool, isn’t it?” said Nancy.
“Bobbie did this building,” said Paul.
“A friend of ours,” Nancy explained. “Robert Scott? The architect? Do you know him, by any chance?”
“No, I don’t believe I do,” said Emily. “All right, Mary. The cocktail things. Mr. Farley, do you mind if I pass that job on to you? My husband hasn’t arrived! He went to Philadelphia this morning and I expected him home at four, but I could have been mistaken. Perhaps he meant the four o’clock train, which arrives at six I think. He may have stopped at the office on the way uptown. It must be important, because it isn’t a bit like him not to phone.”
“Well, one thing, it isn’t his health,” said Paul. “I mean lack of it. When I saw him on Sunday I said to Nancy how well he looked.”
“Yes, I only got a fleeting glimpse of him but I noticed too how well he looked,” said Nancy. “He always gives the impression of strength.”
“Yes, not like most men that were athletes in college,” said Paul. “They usually . . .” He made a gesture of big-belly.
“Oh, he was an athlete?” said Nancy.
“He was on the Yale crew,” said Emily. “I think he keeps well. He played some court tennis this past winter.”
“Oh, really?” said Paul. “That must be a swell game. I’ve never played it. I’ve gone back and forth from squash to squash rackets and this winter I played a little handball, but never court tennis.”
“I never know one from the other,” said Nancy.
“Neither do I,” said Emily. “Mr. Farley, would you like to mix a cocktail? If you have anything in mind. There’s gin and French and Italian vermouth, but we could just as easily have something else.”
“I like a Martini and so does Nancy.”
“I think a Martini,” said Emily.
“Tell Mrs. Liggett what you told me about shaking Martinis,” said Nancy.
“Oh, yes,” said Farley. “You know, like everyone else, I suppose, I’ve been going for years on the theory that a Martini ought to be stirred and not shaken?”
“Yes, that’s what I’ve always heard,” said Emily.
“Well, in London last year I talked with an English bartender who told me that theory’s all wrong. American, he said.”
“Scornfully,” said Nancy.
“Very scornfully,” said Paul.
“I can imagine very scornfully,” said Emily.
“Well, we’ve always been taught that if you shake a Martini you bruise the cocktail. I’ve always taken a holy delight in not bruising a poor little cocktail until this English barkeep explained the right way, or his way, and I must say it sounds plausible. He told me a Martini ought to be shaken very hard, briskly, a few vigorous shakes up and down, so that the gin and vermouth would be cracked into a proper foamy mixture. He said Americans, especially in these dark ages—I mean Prohibition, not the depression. We have a tendency to drink a cocktail in two gulps, for the effect, whereas if you shake the cocktail the various ingredients go into solution more completely, and the result is a foamy drink—not very noticeably foamy, but more foamy than not—and you have a cocktail that you can sip, almost like champagne.”
“Oh, I never heard that,” said Emily. “It does sound like a plausible theory, as you say.”
“You see, our cocktails, stirred, are syrupy and very strong. Two Martinis out of a stirred batch have much more effect than two shaken ones. Stirred cocktails are little more than straight gin and vermouth. So we’ve followed his advice and I must say I think he’s right.”
“Let’s do it that way, then. I’ll get the other shaker. This one has only the stirring kind of top.”
“Oh, no, not if it means—”
“Not at all,” said Emily. “I want to try your way.” She went to the dining-room and came back with a shaker.
“I noticed you have new cocktail shakers too,” said Nancy. “You know, we have newer cocktail shakers and things like that than a cousin of Paul’s. She was married five years ago, and by actual count she was given twenty-two cocktail shakers for wedding presents. All sorts. And those she kept look positively obsolete compared with ours. Ours are all new, within the last two years.”
“When Weston and I were married no one would have thought of giving a cocktail shaker.”
“We didn’t get a single one,” said Nancy.
“There,” said Paul. “I hope you like this after all my build-up, Mrs. Liggett.”
She tasted her cocktail. “Oh, yes, by all means. Oh, even I can see the difference right away.”
“Isn’t it a lot better?” said Nancy.
“Yes. Weston will like it too, I know. His favorite drink is whiskey and soda. He’d almost rather not drink cocktails for that reason, that they’re too syrupy. This ought to be the solution of the cocktail problem for him. Speaking of Weston, I think we’ll wait five more minutes and if he hasn’t arrived we’ll begin without him. He’s usually so punctual about meals, and I know he was especially anxious to be on time for the Farleys. I hate being late for the theater, so we’ll give him five more minutes. I’m so glad you hadn’t seen ‘Tomorrow and Tomorrow.’ Herbert Marshall has such charm, don’t you think so, Mrs. Farley?”
“Just about the most charming man I know. Not that I know him. I did meet him.”
“I don’t see how he gets around with that leg of his,” said Paul.
“I can’t even tell which one it is, and I watch every time,” said Nancy.
“He lost it in the war, didn’t he?” said Emily.
“I believe so,” said Nancy.
“Yes, he did. He was in the British Army,” said Paul.
“Not in the Austrian Army, dear?” said Nancy.
Everyone laughed politely. “As a matter of fact he was in the Austrian Army,” said Paul. “He was a spy.”
“No, no. That’s not getting out of it,” said Nancy. “Besides, that’s not
original. Who was it said that first? You read it in The New Yorker.”
“What was that?” asked Emily.
“Oh, you must have seen it. I think it was in the Talk of the Town column. George S. Kaufman, you know, he wrote ‘Once In a Lifetime’ and a hundred other plays.”
“Yes,” said Emily.
“Well, he and some of the Algonquin literati were together one night and there was a stranger in their midst who kept bragging about his ancestry, and finally Kaufman, who is a Jew, spoke up and said: ‘I had an ancestor a Crusader.’ The stranger looked askance and Kaufman went on: ‘Yes, his name was Sir Reginald Kaufman. He was a spy.’”
“All right, except that it was Sir Roderick Kaufman,” said Nancy.
Emily laughed. In one more minute she would have taken her guests in to dinner, but before the minute was up the doorbell rang and then the door was opened and Liggett came in, supported by the elevator operator and the doorman, who Emily noticed first was trying to take off his cap.
“Oh, God,” said Emily.
“Good Lord,” said Paul.
Nancy sucked in her breath.
“What in God’s name happened, darling?” said Emily, going to him.
“I’ll take this arm,” said Paul to the doorman.
“Please let me walk by myself,” said Liggett, and shook off his helpers. “I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Farley, but you’ll have to excuse me tonight.”
“Oh, well, of course,” said Nancy.
“Can’t I give you a hand, old man?” said Paul.
“No, thanks,” said Liggett. “Emily—will you—I think Mrs. Farley, Mr. Farley.”
“Let me help you to your room,” said Farley. “I think I ought to do this, Mrs. Liggett.”
“I’d rather you didn’t, Farley. Thanks just the same, but I’d really rather you didn’t,” said Liggett. “Apologize to you, Emily, before the Farleys.”
“Oh, they understand I’m sure,” said Emily. “Mrs. Farley, Mr. Farley, you will excuse us I know?”
“Of course,” said Farley. “If you want me to do anything?”
“No, thank you. I’ll manage. I’m sorry.”